


Of Planes, Trains, and Mossmobiles

by startaroux



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Road Trip, Bickering, Friends to Lovers, I mean it's unexpected and unwanted but it's a road trip nontheless, Lost Roronoa Zoro, M/M, Mutual Pining, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pining, Road Trips, Slow Burn, U.S. geography (sorry), can you tell i like putting them in ridiculous situations, idiots to lovers, train shenanigans
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 02:55:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27646469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/startaroux/pseuds/startaroux
Summary: On their way home from a vacation with friends, Zoro gets himself spectacularly lost and Sanji somehow ends up halfway across the country with him. Finding their way back home with no money, no phones, and no transportation won't be easy.
Relationships: Roronoa Zoro/Sanji
Comments: 13
Kudos: 70





	Of Planes, Trains, and Mossmobiles

**Author's Note:**

> I'm finally posting this! I've been wanting to write a long modern au for a long time and this has been in my docs since last year. I'm so excited to share this story and I really hope y'all have fun reading it :)

_“_ _Attention, passengers: The 1:15 train to Portland will be leaving shortly. Please make your way to the platform for boarding. Passengers for the 1:10 train to Tallahassee may now begin boarding.”_

Sanji blew out a final stream of smoke into the crisp Colorado winter air and stubbed out his cigarette on the brick wall behind him. That would be his last one for the next four and a half hours, and he wanted it to last as long as possible. Seemed his time was up.

This vacation with his friends had been exactly what he needed. A change of scenery, some time away from his dad’s kitchen, quality time with his best friends. And... maybe some good skiing memories that didn’t involve serious back injury.

The last ski trip he’d gone on was when he was a kid, and it hadn’t ended well. A way-too-cocky-13-year-old Sanji had headed straight for the most difficult slope and proceeded to fly right off the trail and into an inconveniently-placed tree. He ended up with a temporary back brace and a permanent hatred toward pine trees.

But these past few days had more than made up for that traumatic experience. Nami’s avid bargain-hunting landed them three affordable rooms at a fancy ski lodge, and they had all jumped at the chance for a vacation.

Other than completely showing everyone else up by shredding up and down the slopes, there had been cozy, late nights sitting around a fire, listening to Brook pick at his guitar, near-violent snowball fights where he managed to beam Zoro right in his stupid face, and a couple of dinners that even Sanji had to admit were amazing.

But, as usual, all good things must come to an end and he was feeling refreshed and ready to head back home to the real world.

Sanji hoisted his carry-on bag over his shoulder as he sauntered back to where his friends were waiting for him. Nami, the incredible, fantastic, lovely woman that she was, was checking around to make sure everyone had their tickets and luggage, paying special attention to Luffy.

“Nami, come _on_ , I have everything! Seriously, go check someone else now, jeez.” Luffy was all but pouting at what he surely deemed to be unfair treatment. Anyone else would tell you Nami’s actions were completely justified.

“Luffy, I swear to God, I will skin you alive myself if we end up with another Grand Canyon fiasco. And what the fuck are you even wearing? It’s like 12 degrees out here.” 

Nami pulled at Luffy’s hoodie (or what was left of it) as though to make her point. The guy was dressed in flip-flops, jorts, and a hoodie with the sleeves torn off. The only semblance of warm clothing on his body was the red hand-knit beanie Robin had made him for Christmas last year.

Luffy just shrugged, as though standing in the snow while quite nearly barefoot was nothing to fuss over. 

“I dunno. Don’t really get cold I guess. Least I'm wearing socks?”

"' _Least I'm wearing socks_ ,'" Nami mimicked, rolling her eyes. “Whatever. If you’re comfortable like that, then I have exactly zero fucks left to give about it.” 

She heaved a defeated sigh before glancing at her phone to check the time.

“We’ll be boarding any minute now. Is everyone good to go?”

There were nods all around and one particularly cheeky “yes ma’am!” from Franky. A few seconds passed before Usopp spoke up, unknowingly changing the course of the day completely.

“Hey, uh, where’s Zoro?”

". . ."

_“Goddammit,”_ Nami yelled. “Okay, everyone fan out! Hurry it up, we’re boarding soon!”

Sanji immediately did as he was told, scanning the crowd for that head of lettuce he knew all too well. 

Unfortunately, this was nothing new for them. In fact, they’d all come to expect it anytime the group went anywhere together. 

Usopp had even come up with a name for situations like this, and everyone knew what to do when someone announced they had a “Code Green” on their hands. It meant that Zoro was fucking lost again and they had to find his ass and drag him back before he ended up on the other side of the planet.

_“Attention, passengers: Final call for the 1:10 to Tallahassee. Boarding will now begin for the 1:15 to Portland. Once again, final call for the 1:10 to Tallahassee.”_

“Shit.” Sanji cursed to himself. They only had a few minutes at best before their train pulled out of the station and left them all behind. “Okay, calm down and think about this. Now, if I were a useless marimo, where would I--”

The other train. No. No way. He wouldn’t. Zoro may be an idiot, but there’s no way he’s _that_ stupid... Right?

He couldn’t have possibly gotten on the wrong--

“There he is, that motherfucker.”

As it turned out, Sanji’s hunch was correct. In a window seat on the train to Tallahassee sat the green-dyed bane of Sanji’s existence, looking as confident in his poor decisions as ever. 

Did he not realize his friends weren’t with him? What thoughts could have possibly been going through that non-existent brain of his? Did he even _have_ thoughts?

Those were all questions to agonize over later, though. Right then, Sanji needed to let the rest of his friends know they could all stop searching, and he needed to kick Zoro’s ass all the way back to the right train for causing everyone so much trouble again. 

Sanji ran to the nearest one of his group he could find. Franky wasn’t hard to spot with his bright blue pompadour-looking head of hair. Plus the guy was like eight feet tall.

“Franky!”

“Oh hey, bro! I was just--”

“No time! I found the idiot, he got on the wrong train," Sanji said, jerking a thumb over his shoulder toward the train that was headed to _Florida_ of all places. "Here, take my shit and get everyone else to go ahead and board while I grab him, okay?” 

Sanji shoved his bag with all his belongings into Franky’s freakishly huge hands and bolted off to where he had seen Zoro before, barely registering the "you got it, bro!" that was yelled after him.

Sanji leaped over the threshold onto the railcar and quickly made his way to the front where he knew Zoro would be sitting. Or at least, he had expected him to be sitting there. He never, ever lived up to Sanji’s expectations, though, did he?

Zoro was gone. Nowhere in sight. It had taken all of 20 seconds for Sanji to lose sight of him again and he had no idea where else to go from here. His duffle bag was still here in the seat, though, so he couldn’t have gotten far. Sanji realized there was only one other place he would have gone.

“Fuck. We do not have time for this.” Sanji grabbed the nearest porter and almost screamed at him in his desperation to find Zoro. “Does this train have a bar? _Where is it?_ ”

“Uh... Y-yes sir, it--”

“Well tell me where, dammit! Now!” Sanji was quickly losing his patience with the poor, undeserving man. It wasn’t _his_ fault most of Sanji’s friends had the mental capacity of a walnut. 

All of them. Smart as one single, solitary walnut.

But at the same time, Sanji couldn’t bring himself to care. They probably only had a minute at the very most before this train started moving, and common courtesy wasn’t going to help him move any faster.

“Th--uh--that way!” The man squawked while caught somewhere between frantically pointing somewhere behind Sanji and pushing him in that direction.

When Sanji let go of the porter’s collar, the man stumbled backward with a yelp and tried to throw an indignant look at his aggressor, but Sanji was already running through the door in pursuit of his friend.

A bar to Zoro was like a watering hole to an elephant, and Sanji finding Zoro here was less surprising than finding garbage in a landfill. Sanji stalked up to him and grabbed his shoulder. 

“Zoro, you ignorant fuck, do you have any clue where you are right now? What exactly do you think you’re doing?”

“Oh, there you are, cook. You guys get lost or something?” Zoro shrugged Sanji’s hand off his shoulder. “Yeah, I thought I was in a bar but there’s no bartender around. What’s a guy gotta do to get some damn service around here?”

Sanji was speechless for a moment before the absolute idiocy of the situation settled in and he was able to shake himself out of his stupor and respond.

“You-- _ugh_. Just--fucking. Come with me. Now!” He finally managed to sputter out, which only served to confuse Zoro even more thoroughly.

“What? Why? What are we-- _OW!_ Hey what the f--”

Sanji had managed to drag Zoro off of the barstool and was now quite literally kicking him in the ass in an attempt to get him back through the door. There’s no telling how much time they had left before--

_Chk._

Wait.

_Chk. Chk._

No.

_Chk. Chk. Chk-Chk-ChkChkChkChk_

“Damn, finally. Looks like we're leaving,” Zoro said, completely oblivious to his own predicament. 

Sanji, on the other hand, felt like his soul had left his body and was already falling halfway to hell.

“Hey, where's everyone else, anyway?” Zoro continued, ambling along paying almost no attention to the near lifeless state of the cook next to him. "They in a different car, or...?"

A deep, disturbing chuckle bubbled up from Sanji's chest and he began laughing hysterically, tears stinging his eyes and he wiped at them absentmindedly with the heel of his hand.

  
This wasn't funny. Nothing about this situation was _funny_ at all _._

But goddamn. Only he would get caught in a situation like this. He caught Zoro's gaze as the other man was looking at him like he'd completely lost his mind.

Well, only he and Zoro, apparently.

"Yes, mosshead. They _are_ in a different car," Sanji said as though he were talking to a toddler in a voice far too light and conversational for his current state of mind. "They're all in a different _car_ on a different _train_ , headed to a different _city_ in a _different part of the goddamn country._ "

Zoro just scratched his head in confusion and Sanji had to wonder how in the hell this man managed to survive on his own for so long. 

“So, wait. Did they get on the wrong--”

Sanji slapped his hand over Zoro’s mouth, stopping him from finishing that sentence. If he heard those words, in particular, come out of Zoro’s mouth, he knew he’d end up killing him on the spot. All things considered, he’d rather keep him alive for the time being.

“ _No_ , you asshole,” Sanji hissed, “Not them, you. _You_ got on the wrong train.”

Zoro’s face screwed up in confusion from behind where Sanji’s hand was still keeping him from speaking. Gripping Sanji's wrist and prying the hand away from his face, he took one confused look up through the train car and back down the other way before leveling his gaze on Sanji again.

“So, if I'm the one who got on the wrong train, then… why are you here?"

Sanji's prayers that the moron would say something at least halfway intelligent went unanswered. Go figure.

" _Because_ ," Sanji growled, "I was trying to stop you."

"Well, you didn't do a very good job of that, did you?"

Sanji's vision went red and he was just about to murder Zoro in cold blood and serve him to the other passengers when a gravelly, slurred voice sounded over the intercom. 

_"Mmm, good afternoon, this is Kokoro, your conductor. A--_ hic _\--staff member will be stopping by shortly to check tickets, so if all passengers would stay--_ hic _\--seated until you've had your ticket punched, we can get this over with quickly. Have a lovely d--"_

The intercom cut out before the conductor finished her announcement, but Sanji couldn't give less of a shit how unprofessional and disorderly she sounded. He and Zoro had another issue on their hands.

"Shit, I guess we better get back to our--" Zoro started but Sanjj slapped a hand over his mouth again.

"Shut up. We aren't going to our seats because we don't _have_ seats, Zoro," he explained without a shred of patience. "We have no tickets for this train, therefore we're technically stowaways and, I don't know about you, but I’m really not keen on getting arrested today."

This time Zoro just licked Sanji's hand to get him to remove it and ignored the cry of disgust it got him in return.

" _Arrested?_ Wouldn't they just-- throw us off the train at the next stop or something?" Zoro asked, actually having the decency to look worried for the first time that day. "Why would they arrest us if we boarded accidentally?"

"You, moss head. _You_ boarded accidentally, remember?"

"Whatever, just answer the fucking question."

Sanji groaned and rubbed at his temples, feeling a dull headache start to come on, probably from his close proximity to stupidity incarnate. Nothing about this situation was okay, and Zoro didn’t even know the first thing about the situation they’d found themselves in.

“The main issue is this,” Sanji answered with every ounce of goodwill left in his body. “It doesn’t matter if we got on this train accidentally or not if we have no ticket. I had mine in my bag which I gave to Franky before running off after you. So it really doesn’t matter how much mishap I claim, I look like a fare evader to any cop with a brain.”

“Okay, that… that actually makes sense,” Zoro mumbled, scratching his head.

“That being said, it might be easier for you to pass it off as an accident if you actually have a ticket,” Sanji continued. “Is it in your bag?”

Zoro frowned.

“It’s… um…”

Sanji narrowed his eyes at his friend who seemed to be very interested in the interior design of the train car all of a sudden.

“Zoro, where the fuck is your ticket?”

“Nami has it,” he sighed. “She didn’t trust me not to lose it.”

“Wow.” Sanji bowed his head in disbelief. He was far too emotionally exhausted to be surprised anymore. “Lot of good that fucking did.”

"Okay… okay what if we just call someone?" Zoro asked and Sanji's head shot up at the first sign of hope that they might not actually be in deep shit. "Do you have your phone on you?"

Sanji patted himself down in a hurry, but to his horror, he realized he had left his phone with Franky in the carry-on bag.

"Shit, no. What about yours?"

"Dead," Zoro said with a defeated grumble. "Been dead all week. I left the charger back at home."

The two sat in silence for a moment, neither quite sure how to proceed with the situation, but both knowing they had to do _something._

A distant thud and voices from the next car over ripped them out of their trances.

"Fuck. Either way, we need to hide ourselves so I can at least think for a minute..." Sanji looked around, taking into consideration the empty lounge car they were still standing in. He grabbed Zoro by the front of his shirt and dragged him over and down into a crouch behind the bar. "Alright, this'll do for now."

"Oh! Real clever, Curly. They'll never find us here."

Sanji shot him a glare that could melt ice.

“Shut the fuck up so I can think.”

Before Zoro could shoot back a scathing response, though, the sound of a door opening caught their attention.

Sanji stayed crouched behind the bar, glaring at Zoro, _willing_ him not to fuck up and make any noise.

The sound of footsteps plodding toward the bar felt like they echoed in Sanji's chest and he had to close his eyes to control his breathing.

The footsteps stopped and there was quiet for an awful moment, nothing but the sound of the car's wheels on the tracks beneath them.

"I know you’re back there Blueno," said that same gravelly voice from earlier accompanied by the scrape of a barstool. "Quit hidin’ from me dammit, it's your favorite customer."

Sanji shot a vague look at Zoro and motioned for him to _stay_ before standing up without a single plan.

"Afternoon, miss. I was just… restocking."

"Huh. You’re not Blueno." The old woman looked Sanji up and down before continuing to take her seat. "Who the hell are you and what are you doing behind my bar?"

“No, miss, I’m just… I’m just covering for him,” Sanji lied, smiling and silently begging her to buy it. “He’s ah… indisposed.”

She eyed him for another moment before barking out a laugh and slamming her hand on the counter.

“Aw, hell. I told him not to eat that deer chili back at the station, didn’t I? Now look what happened," she said. "Name's Kokoro. Gimme a red, would ya, honey?” 

When Sanji located a wine glass and slid it toward her, however, she slid it right back at him; instead gesturing for the whole bottle out of his other hand. He handed it to her without further question.

“So I guess that makes you one of them new cooks, then?”

_Bingo._ Perfect cover.

“Y-yes, ma’am! That’s-- yes. I’m a cook on this train.”

Kokoro sat back and considered him for another moment then snorted. Honestly, she was starting to make him feel like the prize pig at a state fair.

“Well, I hope you cook better’n you look, hun.” She drained a quarter of the bottle in one gulp and Sanji nearly flinched at the treatment of such good wine. “You know what they say about skinny cooks, right?”

Sanji shook his head.

“You can’t trust ‘em,” Kokoro replied with a wink and then heaved herself off the barstool. “Well, I’d better get back to it. See ya around, string bean.”

“Yes-- ma’am…” 

Sanji watched her leave through the door and most _certainly_ did not get startled by a snicker from Zoro who he _definitely_ didn’t forget was still crouched by his feet. Sanji kicked him for good measure.

“Well, that takes care of one thing, I guess,” Sanji said, grabbing Zoro’s hand and helping him stand back up from where he sat sprawled on his ass. “I’m a cook now.”

“Weren’t you always a cook?” Zoro asked, dusting himself off. “Flipping pancakes in the womb and shit? I can’t imagine you doing anything else.”

Despite everything, Sanji laughed at that. He certainly had been an excellent chef for as long as Zoro knew him, at least. Most of his friends didn’t meet him until after Zeff took him in.

“Anyway, I guess that just leaves you, then,” Sanji said, scratching at his chin in thought. “What could a lost little marimo do on a train… Shovel coal?”

“Fuck off, this train’s electric.” Zoro crossed his arms and leaned against the counter. “For now, I guess… I’ll have to find a spot to hunker down in. Maybe with the luggage?”

“Well, well look at you using your brain.” Sanji crouched down again behind the bar and started rifling through cabinets and drawers. “Hm. There has to be one somewhere… Aha!”

Thumbtacked to the inside of one of the cabinets was exactly what Sanji--and by extension, Zoro--needed: a map of the train. Laying it out in front of him, he quickly found a drawing of the lounge car that they were in, near the front end of the train closer to the high-end suite cars.

Trailing his finger along the line of cars, he found what looked to be one of the luggage areas not too far away. Sanji looked up at Zoro, then back down at the map. Looking back up at Zoro again, he frowned, scratched his head, then fixed his eyes on the map once more.

“What is it?” Zoro asked, glaring at the map as well, but obviously not seeing what Sanji could see.

“It’s just--” Sanji sighed and shook his head, “I’m not confident you’ll be able to get there on your own, grass head.”

Zoro snatched the map off the counter and tried to storm off, but not before Sanji could grab him by the arm, spin him around, and shove him in the actual right direction, all while cackling his head off. 

If anything, this was going to be an interesting adventure.

**Author's Note:**

> For anyone not familiar with U.S. geography: Portland is in the far northwest and Tallahassee is in the far southeast, completely opposite directions from each other. 
> 
> i'm also on [tumblr](https://ruskaina.tumblr.com/) unfortunately


End file.
